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|| Sun Gazette

Children's Performances Shine In Hellman's Cautionary Tale

By Michael Toscano
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, July 28, 2005; Page VA10

Lillian Hellman's drama "The Children's Hour" may be clearer to audiences today than when it set Broadway aflame in 1934 and attention focused on a secondary plot point rather than Hellman's core message.

In 1934, even oblique references to an "unnatural" relationship between two women was enough to obscure almost everything else about the play. It was banned in Boston and elsewhere but attracted crowds of theatergoers and propelled Hellman into superstardom. The "L" word is never uttered, even as it casts a vague shadow.

Mary (Mollie Clement) talks to her grandmother, Mrs. Amelia Tilford (Heather Sanderson), in "The Children's Hour." (By Ray Gniewek)

"The Children's Hour" may be about an "L" word, but the word is lies, as Hellman explores the power of lies to destroy people. Hellman based her story on an incident in early 19th-century Scotland in which two female teachers were ostracized after a student alleged that they were lovers. But Hellman's themes became clearer in the 1950s at the height of the McCarthy anti-communist hysteria, when she was victimized because of her admittedly left-wing views. After being put through the Washington wringer, Hellman restaged "The Children's Hour" on Broadway, with just a few minor revisions to make it a clear statement against the smears that ruined countless lives.

Arlington's Firebelly Productions takes the story back into 1934 with its workmanlike production now onstage at Theatre on the Run. A bad seed of a child, angry about being disciplined at her boarding school, whispers something about the two women who run the institution into just the right ears.

Within hours, the students have all been plucked out of the school by upset parents, and the two women, who have invested their lives in the school, are ruined financially and shattered emotionally.

The child's lie is overt. Other lies at the school and in the home of the child's grandmother, who recklessly sounds the alarm, are more subtle and live in the form of truths not told. All have their impact.

Today that child's lie might not receive much attention, but there are newer subjects that can ignite fears and hostile reactions. Charges of child molestation or suspicions of links to terrorism, for example, can arouse great fear and loathing and need to be taken seriously. But, as the play suggests, such charges warrant searching out the facts instead of jumping to conclusions.

This is a serious play, but, as the story occurs in a boarding school for girls, there are quite a few young girls in the cast. Amazingly, the scenes with the children -- with or without adults onstage -- have more dimension, energy and dramatic sizzle than the scenes performed strictly by adults. Leading the children's pack is Mollie Clement, who is widely remembered for her vivid portrayal of a young Helen Keller in The Arlington Players' outstanding production of "The Miracle Worker." Clement is truly scary as Mary, the angel-faced demon who has learned cunning, manipulation and deceit at a tender age. Clement's depiction of evil is unusually subtle and effective for one so young; she casts an eerie spell with just a slight smile of self-satisfaction when her machinations take effect.

Director Kathi Gollwitzer has less success with the adults, who seem slightly lost in the undertones. While the individual performances are adequate, the adult cast never completely sparks together, and big, dramatic scenes are slow and enervated, flattened by unnecessary gravitas. The exception is Heather Sanderson as Amelia Tilford, the demon-child's foolish grandmother, who consistently crackles with indignation and outrage. Fortunately, Hellman's peeling away of her characters' facades and her insight into the human heart remain compelling to the bitter end of this sordid tale, and despite lackluster lighting and scenic design, this is a fascinating study of the power of words.

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Washington City Paper

The Children's Hour Mary Tilford is a perfectly vile little girl. We're not supposed to despise 9-year-olds, of course, but Lillian Hellman gives us permission, in The Children's Hour, to loathe the mean-spirited, self-serving brat who sets the plot's tragic confrontations in motion. She's a savvy, spoiled creature so convinced that everyone's her enemy that she'll seize any opportunity to undermine them--whether with a skewed half-truth or an outright lie. Specifically, Mary lashes out at the boarding-school teachers who discipline her with the accusation that their closeness has the whiff of the "unnatural"--and backs up the claim with invented details gleaned from the French novels she's secretly been reading. The charge, leveled in small-town America circa 1934, destroys one marriage, one conscience, and one life--Hellman insists, bracingly, that in a viciously judgmental society the truth won't necessarily set anybody free--and if nothing else, Kathi Gollwitzer's staging for Firebelly Productions reminds us that the stakes are always too high when those with access to power play games with people's lives. Rough edges are to be expected from a company whose mission centers on young actors, and rough edges there certainly are. But there are some nicely modulated performances, particularly among the adult players. As for the small herd of pre-adolescents onstage--well, there's not a single Dakota Fanning among ’em, but Gollwitzer ought to be commended for having wrangled them into something shaped roughly like drama. (TG)

© 2005 The Washington City Paper

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A Substantial Production of a Powerful Play

By Potomac Stages

Lillian Hellman's 1934 drama established her as a major playwright, setting the stage for The Little Foxes, Watch on the Rhine, and Candide. It was an example of the kind of naturalistic writing so popular in the second third of the twentieth century: strongly plotted, peopled with characters with marked strengths and weaknesses, told in a series of scenes that are both interesting in their own right and carry the story forward in a literal, linear manner building to an emotional climax all the more affecting because the audience has come to care deeply for the people to whom it is happening. This production focuses on the strengths of the script and offers capable performances under intelligent direction with a serviceable small theater set design and minimal production values.

Storyline: A disturbed student at a struggling private girls prep school destroys the lives of the school's proprietors by making allegations of sexual impropriety.
Firebelly, with its mission to provide equal casting opportunities for young adult artists, selected well when they picked this play. Not only are there parts that young adults can sink their teeth into, there are opportunities for younger performers, as Hellman didn't skimp in writing depth into the characters of even the smaller parts of the students in the school. Two of those young actors are particularly impressive - seventh grader Taylor Eggleston, and nine year old Mollie Clement. Clement astonished everyone in the audience at the Arlington Players the last time we reviewed her with her performance as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. Here she gives another tightly controlled performance and exhibits a clear, if aberrant, logic as the fomenter of all the internal strife in the small prep school. Eggleston has a smaller part but one that she manages to reach an impressive climax at the end of Act III. The image of her collapse contrasts marvelously with the slyly satisfied smile Clement lets flick across her face as the lights dim.

A trio of young adults are at the center of the story. Ali Miller and Anna Waigand are the co-founders of the girl's prep school. Their initially incredulous reaction to the allegations which ultimately destroy them are the image of heartfelt naïveté, and the earnestness with which they believe the truth will be a sufficient shield is touching. The crux of this story, however, is the impact of the disaster they didn't see coming. Here it is Miller who gives the more impressive performance as her character descends from confident innocence to devastated victim. Through it all, Christian Gerhart gives a solid supporting performance as Waigand's fiancé, a man of simple, upstanding values who sees his duty and tries earnestly to do it.

Two representatives of the older generation also give notable performances. Heather Sanderson is appropriately infuriating as she receives and then spreads the calumny that destroys the women and their school, and then she is touching in her somewhat haughty reaction when she learns the extent of her error and its consequences. If any proof were needed of the richness of Hellman's writing, it could be had from what Wendy Wilmer does with the character Hellman created for the selfish old biddy of an aunt, who might have been able to forestall the disaster had she even tried. Wilmer makes the character very believable and even frighteningly familiar as calamity swirls about her.

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Sun Gazette

By Matt Reville

What can you say about a pre-pubescent evil-doer who combines the sadism of a Josef Stalin with the bureaucratic machinations of a J. Egdar Hoover?

It’s hard to hate someone so vile, and such is the case with creepy Mary Tilford, the li’l dynamo of Lillian Hellman’s 1934 play “The Children’s Hour,” which shows how life at a rural girls’ school can quickly go to heck through the manipulation of one so young.

Spoiled Mary doesn’t like Karen and Martha, the twentysomething single women who are running the school. So, using a little innuendo and some arm-twisting among fellow students, Mary convinces the town that the two – wink, wink – are something more than just friends and coworkers. And that, the town decides, simply is unacceptable. Mayhem ensues.

The show had a solid two-year Broadway run in its original outing, then came back for a less successful revival in the 1950s. Even now, Hellman’s snazzy dialogue for the most part holds up.

Mollie Clement, who was impressive as Helen Keller in The Arlington Players’ production of “The Miracle Worker,” steals the production with an outstanding performance as the callous Mary. She’s a devilish delight, an equal to the vast mood swings and immense amount of dialogue the role calls for. Wowsie.

Of her two sparring partners, Ali Miller is more effective as Martha, the slacks-wearing free-spirit. Anna Waigand fell a bit short as Karen, the more namby-pamby of the duo, and I felt the same way about Christian Gearhart, who played Karen’s fiancé, a young doctor. They didn’t turn in poor performances, but they were a step or two behind the runaway work of the others.

There were a lot of standout supporting performances among the 15-member cast (a lot of people for Theatre on the Run’s tight space). Among the adults, kudos to Wendy Wilmer and Heather Sanderson as two grand dames, each with her own quirks. I also liked Julie Chappell in a small role as a maid. Among the youths, Taylor Eggleston was solid as Rosalie, one of Mary’s friends who is blackmailed into lying.

Director Kathi Gollwitzer keeps the action moving. Gollwitzer also gets props for the set and sound design, while Miller, Sanderson and the Arlington County costume shop were responsible for the period clothing.

The lone down side came in the third act, which wobbled along too slowly – self-pity is best served up quick and to-the-point; the slow pace gave us all a chance to figure out how the show would end.

That quibble aside, this is quite a remarkable production coming from a small troupe.

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*** Firebelly Productions is supported by Arlington County through the Arlington Commission for the ARTS and the Cultural Affairs Division of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Resources. ***